


They Made a Statue of Us

by Reiya



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, Love, M/M, Victor loves both Yuuri and skating very much and this is a problem, post episode 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 20:27:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8636977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiya/pseuds/Reiya
Summary: “Now, the last jump is a mega-jump that not even Victor Nikiforov ever attempted in the second half. A quadruple lutz!”It takes everything in him not to look away, to keep watching the other skater finish his routine in triumph with a smile of fixed politeness tight on his face. 
 
Set during Episode 8, Victor watches the new skaters take the place he once held and thinks about his future and his complicated relationship with skating and Yuuri Katsuki.





	

_“Now, the last jump is a mega-jump that not even Victor Nikiforov ever attempted in the second half. A quadruple lutz!”_

Victor watches the rink, watches the way the skater – Leroy - flies across the ice almost effortlessly, throwing himself into the jump with a causal grace that takes the crowd’s breath away. Skates touch the ice again in a perfect landing that has people on their feet, chanting and cheering for the man before them whose wears victory in his smile as though he was born for it.

It takes everything in him not to look away, to keep watching the other skater finish his routine in triumph with a smile of fixed politeness tight on his face.

_‘That used to be me’_

The thought catches him before he can stop it and once it’s there there’s nothing he can do to wipe it from his mind. He can almost feel the glide of the ice beneath his skates, the air whipping past him as he spins, the feeling so graceful and perfect and _right_ that he can barely breathe. In his mind he can hear the screams of the crowd, the millions of eyes fixed on him and only him, the chants of his name that shake his very bones and light his world on fire.

It was indescribable, that feeling. The beautiful sense of purpose and belonging, as though everything was set up for just that moment and there was nothing and no-one but him that mattered in the whole world.

But that wasn’t him anymore. The crowd was screaming another name, the announcer praising a new skater for achieving a feat that even the great Victor Nikiforov never even attempted. And it burned.

Objectively, Victor had known the shelf life of a figure skater was short. Had known he was an anomaly as it was, 27 and still skating when so many of his peers had taken their retirement and slipped back into the shadows of anonymity. But he had never realised until that moment what it truly meant for him to no longer be competing.

He was the greatest skater in the world, a living legend, the man who had won medal after medal, had wowed the crowd a hundred different ways, had glided across the ice as though he were born for that and that alone.

But he had lost his inspiration, had stopped skating and suddenly the world span on without him. Faster and faster as new young skaters came to rise up against the legend. To challenge his legacy, to push themselves to be faster and better and surprise the crowds when his own ability to do so had finally abandoned him.

 To hear his name used like that, like the final hurdle that had just been surpassed made his chest clench in a jolt so unexpectedly painful he had to take a long, slow breath just to calm the racing of his heart.

It wasn’t supposed to be the end for him. He had taken the season off, had temporarily given up the joy of gliding across the ice with the screams of the crowds in his ears to find a new inspiration, a new way to wow the masses and regain that perfect feeling of rightness that only skating could bring him. It wasn’t meant to be the end for him, the last bow of a former skater who had lost the ice forever. He had always meant to go back. To compete again and again like he was born to, never faltering, never failing, just the beautiful taste of sharp ice and victory and the thunderous applause in his ears. There was nothing he wanted in the world more than that.

Well, almost nothing.

Because now there was Yuuri. Yuuri who he had flown halfway around the world for. Who had surprised him again and again as he grew and flourished before Victor’s very eyes. His commitment and determination to succeed so very beautiful that when Yuuri was on the ice, to Victor, it was like nothing else existed in the world. He was mesmerising and Victor never wanted to look away.

Yuuri shone when he skated, glittered with a thousand facets and reflections, as cold and beautiful as the ice he skated on. But he was more, so much more than that. Warm and loving and kind and most importantly he was Victor’s. Victor was the only person in the world to see Yuuri in his entirety. The way he spun so gracefully on the ice. The way he laughed. The way the blush would spread across his cheeks as he looked down in shy embarrassment. The way he smiled at Victor like there was no-one else in the world. The way he would beg, so warm and beautiful, clutching Victor in the dead of night and pleading, ‘ _Victor…Victor please…’_

Yuuri who had given him his love, his talent, his trust, his life. Who was counting on Victor to take him to the top because Victor had promised and Yuuri had given him his heart unconditionally. When Victor looked into Yuuri’s eyes he thought that he could happily stay in the moment forever.

And therein lay the final problem. The thing he would not let himself consider, would not think about yet, not until Yuuri won the Grand Prix, because to think about it was to make it a reality and Victor was very good at running away from reality.

He loved Yuuri, loved him with his whole heart, his whole soul, more completely and sincerely than he had ever loved anything before. But his heart had always belonged to the ice and he wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to let that go. He remembered waving to the crowds before Yuuri’s skate, relishing in the way they screamed and chanted his name. He remembered the clamour of the reporters, the tightening in his chest when he heard the woman’s voice, tone inquisitive.

_“If the skater Yuuri has that much charisma, don’t you want to face him as a fellow competitor?”_

He had avoided the question, had redirected the attention to the unsuspecting figure of Yuri skulking at the side-lines because he didn’t _know_. He had never meant to give up skating altogether. He had always planned to go back, to find his inspiration and then return to the rink more triumphant than ever. Back to the top where he had always belonged.

But now. But now there was Yuuri. Yuuri in all his beautiful imperfection, so glorious and so in love with both Victor and the ice. This thing they had between them, so new and yet so pure…Victor wasn’t sure it could survive him leaving Yuuri and taking to the rink again.

Yuuri loved him with a fierceness that startled and thrilled Victor with equal measure. He relished in being the one who had stolen Victor Nikiforov from the world and Victor loved him for it. But no matter how strong this thing between them was, if Victor returned to skating it could never be the same. They were both in love with the ice, the feeling of skating and the fierce joy of victory. When he stood by Yuuri’s side they felt that joy together, relishing in it and each other, but if they faced each other as competitors everything would change.

He didn’t think so little of Yuuri as to believe that Yuuri wouldn’t still love him whatever he chose to do but Victor knew how the skating world worked. He had been the best for so long, had seen how friendships turned slowly bitter as the others realised that no matter what, he was the one thing that stood between them and the victory that they had sweat and bled and cried for. Almost nothing could hold up against that, not the tentative friendships he’s built up with other skaters in his more naive years, not the childish worship of the younger skaters that grew bitter as they grew and maybe not even Yuuri and the precious feeling they had between them.

Yuuri wanted Victor to stay as his coach. To keep what they had frozen in time, untouched by the world moving on around them. Victor wanted it too, to stand by Yuuri’s side permanently. The vigorous training where they pushed and pulled and forced each other to be _better_ , the perfect nights and the feel of Yuuri’s body against his, the quiet moments where they could just exist together, just the two of them and no-one else. The two of them against the world. The fierce, proud joy he felt when he watched Yuuri succeed time and again. He wanted it to stay that way forever.

But the ice called to him. He had heard the calling as a child and he had never been able to resist it. Skating was where he belonged, not on the sidelines but on the ice itself, gliding and jumping and _flying_ an never, never coming down.

He couldn’t have both.

If Victor knew one thing above all others it was that he wanted to stay with Yuuri forever. But there was a part of him that longed to return to the ice, to show the idiots like Leroy that there was nothing they could do to surpass Victor Nikiforov, that he belonged to the ice like it belonged to him and that nothing and no-one could ever change that.

He had never intended to leave skating for more than a season. Had always planned to guide Yuuri to victory, to regain his inspiration and take to the rink again. Had wanted nothing more than to skate again and again, victory after victory, for the rest of his life.

But then something changed. Yuuri changed him. Changed him in ways he never could have imagined, showed him feelings he never thought he could possess.  Stole his heart and gave Victor his own in return with a smile and a promise of forever.

And suddenly Victor didn’t know what he wanted anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> After episode 8 I was really struck by the line the announcer said comparing JJ to Victor. I started thinking about how Victor must be feeling as someone who dedicated his life to skating and is not competing for the first time in so many years. That combined with the uncertainty of Victor's future plans considering he avoided answering the question about whether he would one day compete against Yuuri and this was born. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! Please leave a comment or kudos if you did!
> 
> Rey xx


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